Last Year's Detail Didn't Cut It (Literally)

Onepoint8tee

Onepoint8tee

New member
Late last summer, I finally got around to doing a full exterior detail on my 2000 Candy White Passat. I have a full set of 5.5" Lake Country flat pads and a PC buffer. Used a yellow pad with Meg's Ultimate Compound, and then a white pad with Meg's Ultimate Polish. Finished this off with 2 coats of Klasse HGSG and it looked pretty good.

But not good enough. I wasn't able to get all of the swirls out, and in the right light they would show up and make me feel stupid haha. I mean, after spending that long working on it I wanted perfection! Or close to it.

My question to you gents is what could be a better product combo to achieve the best results? I'm thinking the pads I have are okay, its probably the compound not being heavy enough.

Also, I'm a bit nervous about the clear coat. I don't think the paint has been worked on before me, should it be okay to keep compounding down?

Thanks in advance!
 
VW's have notoriously hard clear coat typically, thickness is anyone's guess unless you get a paint thickness gauge.

You could try a more powerful compound like M105/101, FG400, or Opt. Hyper Compound, or you could try microfiber pads, which have much more cut than foam, but don't finish down as nicely. However you could still try Ultimate Compound on the MF pad, or you could get D300 (Meguiar's MF correction compound) to go with it. You're really not going to know what's going to work until you try it but any of those are a step above what you listed, hope it helped.
 
Onepoint8tee said:
Late last summer, I finally got around to doing a full exterior detail on my 2000 Candy White Passat. I have a full set of 5.5" Lake Country flat pads and a PC buffer. Used a yellow pad with Meg's Ultimate Compound, and then a white pad with Meg's Ultimate Polish. Finished this off with 2 coats of Klasse HGSG and it looked pretty good.

But not good enough. I wasn't able to get all of the swirls out, and in the right light they would show up and make me feel stupid haha. I mean, after spending that long working on it I wanted perfection! Or close to it.

My question to you gents is what could be a better product combo to achieve the best results? I'm thinking the pads I have are okay, its probably the compound not being heavy enough.

Also, I'm a bit nervous about the clear coat. I don't think the paint has been worked on before me, should it be okay to keep compounding down?

Thanks in advance!
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Hi and awesome you want to take your car to the next level! With a PC my suggestion would be M101 and with MF Cutting disc. As stated above VW clear can be extremely hard. As far as your concern with going to far into the paint I wouldn't worry to much as most paint jobs can be polished A LOT if done properly;) After you M101 step you'll probably have some cloudy hazy looking paint because this is very aggressive. After this you could do a test spot with you UP and see if that clears it up enough to be BLING if not you may need to go with UC the UP. I'm thinking you could go straight from 101 to UP and get great results. Hope this helps, I know there are a million other ways to do it, I'm just trying to keep your shopping list to a minimum. Probably doesn't matter though once you start detailing collection of stuff add up really quick! Good luck!
 
Jsmooth said:
Probably doesn't matter though once you start detailing collection of stuff add up really quick! Good luck!
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God ain't that the truth. I needed to buy a garage cabinet just to hold everything haha. So you guys are both all for the microfiber polishing process? Over at passatworld.com theres a detailer who works on exotics frequently and swears by it. Definitely curious to try.

So M101 w/ the Micro cutting pad first, then just my foam pads with the UP (possibly UC)?
 
Onepoint8tee said:
God ain't that the truth. I needed to buy a garage cabinet just to hold everything haha. So you guys are both all for the microfiber polishing process? Over at passatworld.com theres a detailer who works on exotics frequently and swears by it. Definitely curious to try.

So M101 w/ the Micro cutting pad first, then just my foam pads with the UP (possibly UC)?
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Yeah, Should work out well!
 
Ouch, that M101 is $47 on sale.. on autopia that is. No smaller sizes :/ Now that Dooya mentioned it, I've been recommended the Opt. Hyper Compound before by a detailer over on passatworld. If that would work well enough with a yellow foam pad, I'd give that a go.

Only thing is: does this mean the hyper compound spray? Or the Optimum Compound II. Site has both, and I'm trying to use my 20% off for newly joining :D
 
Keep in mind that Megs Ultimate Compound has Oils and Fillers in it, so yes anyone using it can easily be fooled into thinking their paint is corrected when really it's not.

M101 is a good suggestion, Meguiars Polishes are all top notch. If you use their compound just stay out of the sun or else it will turn your detailing into a nightmare...
 
Right now I'm between m105 and opt compound II. I've read that m105 can be tricky to work with though, but has a better cut than the optimum stuff.

I'd love to get the 101 but its just so damn expensive! As is switching to a microfiber system, since I just got all the Lake Country stuff last summer :/

You guys think any of those with just the Meg's Ult. Polish will work fine? Or should I look into a new polish as well?

Edit: one last question, are all 105s and 205s the same? Dumb question but there's a smaller bottle of each in the store labeled "mirror glaze" while the bigger ones aren't. Thanks!
 
Here is what I have to offer (I'm basically gonna hit a bunch of points in the order I remember reading them so it my reply may be a little all over the place)

Audi paint is HARD... The question, to me, is what do the swirl marks look like. Do they look like wash induced marks or ultra-fine marks from polishing.

How good did the paint look after you were done?

Keep in mind that both Ultimate Compound and (particularly) Ultimate Polish will fill in defects. In order For the Klasse to properly bond the surface should be clean (free of the fillers in Ultimate Polish). It could be possible that the finish you are seeing could be the result of Ultimate Compound removing the swirl marks the first time which would result in micro-fine swirls on the surface. These micro swirls would be hidden from the oils in Ultimate Compound + the subsequent application of Ultimate Polish....


M101 is going to perform better than M105 on Audi paint. There is no wrong answer, but M101 is going to work noticeably better on the hard paint.

You have nothing to worry about in terms of clear coat thickness at this point. Swirl marks are caused by towels, dirt, and grime being wiped across the surface. They are shallow! All you are doing to leveling the surface by removing the extremely thin amount of paint above these extremely shallow marks. (Bad washing technique is more abrasive in some regards that a proper washing job).

IF it were up to me, I would start with Meguiar's M101 on a Lake Microfiber Disk, you may need 2 to 3 applications to get the deeper marks. Then follow up with Menzerna PF2500, and finally with Menzerna SF4500, but that would be if it was my car and I wanted the highest-possible gloss.
 
Thanks for the detailed answer Todd! Answers in bold
Todd Helme said:
Audi paint is HARD... The question, to me, is what do the swirl marks look like. Do they look like wash induced marks or ultra-fine marks from polishing.

More wash-induced / overall wear swirls. Our winters up here are rough on a car's finish no matter how much you try to be careful haha. I know I wash the car properly, but who knows how the previous owner was!

How good did the paint look after you were done?

It looked pretty good, but just not as good as I think it could be. My friends couldn't see the swirls left but then again none of them detail or even care about their cars :( It was just in a certain light / angle they'd show up, little spider web like lines

Keep in mind that both Ultimate Compound and (particularly) Ultimate Polish will fill in defects. In order For the Klasse to properly bond the surface should be clean (free of the fillers in Ultimate Polish).

So more or less I should pick up a new polish as well with no fillers?

M101 is going to perform better than M105 on Audi paint. There is no wrong answer, but M101 is going to work noticeably better on the hard paint.

I would LOVE to get the M101! But thats a hefty price tag when the M105 is almost half that for the same size, and I could also just get the 8 oz.
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If there's no way to get a smaller M101 bottle I think I'm gonna go with the 8 oz of both M105 and M205 (Or the Wolfgang Finishing Glaze 3.0 if thats comparable). Really want to try microfiber pads but I think I'll wait till next summer once I wear these new pads down some. I'd get the bigger sizes and spend more if this wasn't really just for my car. Anyone else's I work on (friends / family) I'll just use the Meg's Ult. line up with some standard carnauba :P
 
Dcox9 said:
M105 and M205 works great for me, haven't run into anything that, that combo can't handle
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Alrighty, due to the economic status of a college kid with no current job, I just ordered the 8 oz. bottles of each of these products, along with a Meg's MF Wash Mitt since my family has murdered my old one :wall

Thanks everyone for the input! But.. there is one last question. Most of the videos / posts / whatever I've seen concerning the M105 used an orange pad. I have the Lake Country Yellow and orange, should I just use the orange first and see if thats good enough, and if not step up to yellow? Or leave the yellow alone completely..

Thanks again everyone, you guys are very helpful on here :yourrock :autopia:
 
Jsmooth said:
With a PC my suggestion would be M101 and with MF Cutting disc...I'm thinking you could go straight from 101 to UP and get great results.
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^ AGREED

The Megs 5" MF cutting discs do an excellent job of removing swirls!
Megs M101 is excellent for removing swirls and leaving a nice finish.
Follow that up with Lake Country 5.5" white & UP or M205 for clarity.

NOTE if the Megs 5" mf cutting discs don't cut it try 5" Surbuf pads.
M105 should work fine but it can be a bit finicky (flashing, dusting) etc.
The Megs mf cutting discs make a big difference in getting rid of swirls.
You could use the mf discs with Megs UC and it should work for you.

BTW - I've never had good results from the LC Yellow cutting pads.
 
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